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?Giving Hope’ program empowers African orphans

LINK: Click to open full size version of image
A UMNS photo courtesy of YWCA Rwanda

In Rwanda, an OVC (orphans and vulnerable children) working group makes honey as a means of becoming self-sufficient.

March 9, 2006

By Linda Bloom*

NEW YORK (UMNS) — When Iyakaremye’s parents died, he sought work in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, leaving his two school-age sisters behind.

But a program called “Giving Hope,” which brings child-headed households together into working groups to help them build better lives, lured Iyakaremye back to his sisters. He is now in the process of realizing his dream to become a farmer.

Sponsored by Church World Service and its Africa Initiative, the goal of the Giving Hope program is to expand the reach of churches and grass-roots organizations in meeting the needs of orphans and vulnerable children affected by HIV/AIDS. The program began in Rwanda through the YWCA, a lead partner, and has spread to three other East African countries ? Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya ? and six other partner organizations.

According to UNICEF, 28 percent of all orphans in sub-Saharan Africa — about 12.3 million children — have lost parents to HIV/AIDS. 

Epiphanie Mujawimana, a mother of four and program coordinator for the YWCA in Rwanda, is considered “a driving force” behind the success of Giving Hope. During a Feb. 1-March 3 visit to the United States, she met with supporters of the Giving Hope program, including CWS member communions and the St. Marys United Methodist Church Foundation in Georgia.

LINK: Click to open full size version of image
Photo courtesy of YWCA Rwanda

An OVC working group grows vegetables to raise money for school.
Community building, through OVC (Orphans and Vulnerable Children) working groups, is the core of Giving Hope. By participating in a group, children build friendships and provide one another with emotional support and assistance in household work.

When the 22-year-old Iyakaremye joined his OVC group of 28 children, he was selected as its president, Mujawimana said at a March 2 briefing in New York. To generate income, the group started a bee-keeping project. “A few months later, they had honey and the honey was sold,” she said.

A second project, rice cultivation, added to the group’s savings accounts, from which Iyakaremye borrowed to buy his first four goats. The four goats became 13. Four were sold to repay the loan and another seven sold to purchase a cow.

During the last farming season, Iyakaremye had good harvests of corn, beans and bananas, Mujawimana added, and his teen-age sisters were able to go back to school.

One of the biggest problems that orphans face is finding money to pay school fees, she noted. Niyombabazi, 19, who lost his parents at the age of 8 in a Tanzanian refugee camp, was repatriated to Rwanda in 1999 with a foster family. He later reclaimed his family’s land but was forced to leave high school because of a lack of funds.

Niyombabazi joined an OVC working group and presented a proposal to open a small restaurant next to a primary school that would serve lunch to teachers and nearby mine workers. The group gave him a loan.

“He started with 20 customers,” Mujawimana said. “In one month, he had paid back his loan and he could get prepared to go back to school.”

Community emphasis

The focus on community development was a key reason the St. Marys United Methodist Foundation became a major supporter of the Giving Hope Program, according to Jeff Barker, foundation president.

“We liked the fact that it hit all the various aspects of community development and helping communities raise themselves up,” he told United Methodist News Service.

The foundation was created in 2001 after St. Marys (Ga.) United Methodist Church received a $60 million bequest from the estate of Warren A. Bailey, a longtime member. The foundation’s board decided “to be more effective we needed to become more focused in our international giving,” Barker said.

“We determined that Africa was where we needed to be and the HIV/AIDS situation, especially with regard to youth, was the issue we needed to be a part of,” he added.

A number of organizations submitted proposals, but the foundation, which had worked with CWS on earlier grants, liked the agency’s focus for Giving Hope. The result was a three-year partnership that “has exceeded our expectations” and spread from three to four countries. “We’re very excited about it,” Barker said.

LINK: Click to open full size version of image
A UMNS photo courtesy of YWCA Rwanda

Christina Kabagiza (left), of Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania, lays bricks for a house in Rwanda along with Gina Stein from St. Marys United Methodist Foundation.
Knowing the issues

The original three-year grant was for $1.5 million, but that commitment has increased. The foundation gave $500,000 to the program in 2005, $600,000 in 2006 and expects to give $700,000 in 2007.

Barker visited the program early in 2005 and witnessed how techniques such as sharing skills and using adult mentors were making the teenage heads of household more self-sustainable. “It helped us really understand what the issues were,” he said.

The program objectives for Giving Hope are to increase support for self-empowerment of some 26,400 children in 6,600 households affected by HIV/AIDS, ensure programmatic responses by at least 27 church-based or related organizations, and reduce HIV/AIDS transmission among 30,000 youth through creative youth-led prevention and education initiatives. In 2006 alone, the program is expected to reach more than 14,636 orphaned and vulnerable children.

Tammi Mott, CWS associate director of social and economic development, said the agency’s plan for Giving Hope “is to share the ideas, share the expertise ? with other organizations that are dealing with similar issues.”

Such organizations would use the OVC empowerment methodology, which begins with government and community collaboration, the formation of OVC work groups, and the engagement of community mentors and volunteers. The children involved are given a voice in program planning and become peer educators.

More information on the “Giving Hope” program and the CWS Africa Initiative is available by contacting Mott at tmott@churchworldservice.org or visiting http://www.churchworldservice.org/africainitiative/index.html on the agency’s Web site.

*Bloom is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in New York.

News media contact: Linda Bloom, New York, (646) 369-3759 or newsdesk@umcom.org.

 
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